


hold onto me (cause i'm a little unsteady)

by biochemprincess



Series: keeper of the keys [2]
Category: 12 Monkeys (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Future Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-14
Updated: 2016-07-14
Packaged: 2018-07-23 23:51:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7484781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biochemprincess/pseuds/biochemprincess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>2044. Aurora Railly hates hospital. Unlike her mother, she had never thought about getting into med school. She had never wanted to step into her footsteps. Her aversion doesn't keep her from visiting her mother's bedside every day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hold onto me (cause i'm a little unsteady)

**Author's Note:**

> title from the song 'unsteady' by x ambassadors. (the erich lee gravity remix will give you chills)

* * *

2044.

 

\---

 

_The best thing that can happen now, --- is for you to wake up --- and forget you ever knew me._

 

\---

 

Aurora Railly hates hospital. Unlike her mother, she had never thought about getting into med school. She had never wanted to step into her footsteps. Human bodies make her squirm and uncomfortable and if she sees so much as blood, you have to pick her up from the floor afterwards.  
  
But it's more than that. Aurora also hates everything else about hospitals. The long hallways, the stale air, the smell of sanitizer, the feeling of hopelessness on certain wards. It's a conglomerate of stuff that makes her dislike hospitals.

Her aversion doesn't keep her from visiting her mother's bedside every day.

 

\---

 

It starts slowly.

Cassandra forgets trivial things.

To buy tea, to turn off the boiling water, dates and appointments.

Then she forgets her daughter's name one day.

And Aurora starts worrying.

 

\---

 

There is a certain trust involved when dealing with doctors and Aurora does trust them, even though they have no answer to her mother's condition. It's not a tumor, they say, and that's more than she had hoped for.

But their only other guess is early onset dementia, which is nowhere near better. Her mother is barely 64, she is a brilliant woman, for crying out loud. She is a wonderful doctor and a person and _her mummy_. Aurora certainly feels like crying most of the time lately. The doctors are not sure yet, so they are keeping her in the hospital.

For further tests.

Because something about he blood values puzzles them. She won't know, she doesn't know much about medicine.

Aurora is 27, and she wishes she could do more, help her mother, instead of only holding her hand. She has a bachelor's degree in English Lit and a master's degree in Library and Information Studies, but none of it is helping her in this situation.

Nothing brings brings memories back.

 

\---

 

"You look so much like him, you know?"

Aurora looks up from the book she's been reading and into her mother's eyes. They look awake and lucid. It doesn't mean anything. She knows what's coming and she knows it's just another figment of her mother's imagination.

Whenever she is talking about _him_ , Aurora knows to brace herself. There aren't many things holding Cassandra's interest these days. But _he_  definitely is. It's a shame and it's a tragedy and she doesn't know if she is tired, of if she is jealous of the man who has a place in her mother's mind when she has less and less these days.

"Like Cole?," Aurora asks, masking her pain behind a smile. It's an uncomfortable topic to talk about

Cassandra clenches her hands into fists until her knuckles turn white, then releases them again. "Yes. You have his eyes."

She always says that.

"We saved the world."

She always says that _too._

"I know, Mum."

The sun rays illuminate the room, warming their skins. It doesn't look too much of a hospital, Aurora has to admit. The walls are painted in a soft yellow. It's a scenery that makes their conversation seem almost unreal.

Less painful than it should be.

"Time has only left me you." 

That was new.

"What do you mean?" Aurora ask carefully.

Her mother's eyes fixate on her. "Time really likes you, Aurora."

And that's the last Cassandra says, before she slowly turns her head and falls asleep, safe and sound.

 

 

\---

 

_"Mummy?"_

_"Yes, Honey?"_

_"Are the time travelers from your stories real?"_

_"In a different universe, everything can be real, even time traveling. And there are many, many universes."_

 

\---

 

Over the years, Aurora had asked a mother dozens of questions about her father. It hadn't mattered so much when she was a little girl. She had know many other kids without fathers. Fathers hadn't seemed to be the best kind of role models, they weren't the ones that stayed.

Her best friend Hannah hadn't had a father either.

Still doesn't have one.

But then she had grown up and the question of half of her parentage had nagged at her mind. Aurora had taken a look at her birth certificate and seen the lack of a name there, the blank line. Hannah at least had had a name to give to her absent father. Though, to be fair, instead of Elliot she usually calls him Asshole, like her mother does.

Asking her mother for the first time had required bravery. Cassandra had become eerily quiet, as if she had broken some unspoken rules, but she had answered every single question nonetheless.

And Aurora had known it was the truth.

Her mother would never lie to her.

No, he didn't know of her existence. Yes, she wishes it were different. Yes, he would be proud of her. James.

_James._

Aurora had treasured the stranger's name.

A common name.

Whenever she had met men around her mother's age named James she had taken as second look at them, despite knowing they couldn't be her father. Her mother had said he wasn't in the picture anymore. It had been a comforting ritual though, a strange kind of game. What if one of them would look at her and know?

Cassandra had never told her his last name. Not as a child and not as a teenager. It had bothered Aurora sometimes, sure, but she had never poked any further. The tears shining in her mother's eyes had held her back.

It is only much later that she hears more about James Cole and thinks that her own mother might have lied to her for her whole life.

 

\---

 

The next few days are barely better.

Nothing changes.

The status quo is nothing Aurora wants to maintain for much longer.

 

\---

 

She would like to pretend the idea is new, but the seed had been growing for a long time now. If she could find the man her mother is talking about, maybe it'll give her some kind of closure.

Maybe she can move on.

And if Aurora could tell her mother that she has tried to find him without success, well then maybe it would help her too. She is clutching at any straw. 

Aurora knows her mother has a place where she keeps personal stuff and she is determined to find it. It's is not appropriate to invade her mother's privacy like this, but it could give her a hint. All if fair if you are just desperate enough.

She finds a wooden box in the last corner of Cassandra's wardrobe, in perfect condition.

The box is filled with stuff and other keepsakes. There are notebooks, the pages inscribed with her mother's handwriting. Newspaper articles and articles cut out of science magazines, mostly about virus stuff. Photographs. There's an old wrist watch, still ticking.

Aurora pulls out the paper scraps, skims through the book pages. It feels like intruding to read any it, so she puts them away again. Most of the photos have her in the leading role; she as an infant, as a toddler, her first day at school.

But one picture in particular catches her eye. It's in black and white, the only one out of them all, and a lot more worn down than the others. She has never seen it before.

It shows her mother in her early thirties in some old fashioned dress in front of the US flag. A man -  Aurora doesn't know him, _but she knows who he is_ \- has his arm wrapped around Cassandra's waist. They are both smiling, they look happy.

She turns around the picture and there are two names, one as familiar as breathing, the other shiny and new.  _J. Cole & C. Railly._

J. Cole.

James Cole.

It's not like he is wearing a name tag reading, _I am your father_ ,  but her gut is telling her she is right.

Aurora would never acknowledge it to herself, but she is looking at the man's eyes far longer than is socially acceptable.

And despite the photography being in black and white, she must agree with her mother. They do have similar eyes.

 

\---

 

"How is it going?," Hannah asks and there's is loud clatter from her end of the phone. Aurora can imagine the battlefield of pots and dishes Hannah must be standing in. She is a goddess in the kitchen.  Her chocolate souffles are to die for.

Aurora rubs her tired eyes, browsing through a book for work without really reading it. She pulls her blonde hair up into a messy bun and almost drops her phone. "Me or my mum?"

"Both of you."

"She's still in the hospital and only caffeine is keeping me together right now. It's like glue."

"I'm sorry," Hannah says. The sincerity in her voice resonates through the phone. "Is there anything I can do for you?"

"You still don't know what manners and boundaries mean, right?"

Hannah laughs out loud. "They don't call me Ninja for nothing. _What are gonna do tonight, Brain?_ "

" _The same thing we do every night Pinky - try to take over the world,_ " she answers out of habit. They have watched the show way too often to not take the chances.

"And what are we really going to do?"

"Did you know there are 184 people called James Cole living in the area around Philadelphia? Interested in helping me find them?"

 

\---

 

"Did you listen to me? I'll be gone for the weekend?" She gives her mother a kiss on the cheek. The afternoon had gone exceptionally smooth compared to others in recent history. It's wind under her battered wings.

"Who are you even going on a roadtrip with?," Cassandra asks with unveiled animosity. "It's too dangerous out there."

"Hannah."

"Hannah doesn't have a driving license. These authorities don't exist anymore." 

The wind dies down immediately. Aurora takes a deep breath. "Mum, what year do we have?"

"2044."

"And how old is Hannah?"

"28. I'm not stupid, Aurora."

"I know you're not." She takes Cassandra's hand and holds on tight. Time to try something else. "You saved the world, remember?"

Her mother looks at her and for a second Aurora imagines a spark of recognition there. "Yes, I remember." 

"We are fine."

"We are fine."

 

\---

 

They print out addresses and phone numbers, pack only the most necessary things and then they are gone. The background of their trip is deadly serious, but that doesn't keep them from having some fun. Hannah, who loves to pretend to be somebody else, is in her element. And Aurora lets herself get carried with her.

One after another they cross James Cole's from their list. Many of them don't fit their age range, some are women and all of them don't look like the picture. Friday and Saturday fly by, and they have ruled out 24 men on their list when it's Sunday evening and they need to head home again.

"I love you, but I also love my job and I'd like to keep it."

"Same."

The last stop of the day and the trip overall is the most necessary one. Their fuel tank is almost empty and fortunately one of the James Cole's on her list is owning a garage with a gas station on the way home. They can get a break and subtly check out the guy and compare him to the man on the picture.

Aurora doesn't really expect anything. All things considered, it had been a waste of time and money.  She walks into the garage and promptly finds a man bent over the open hood of a Jeep. He's got dark blond hair and his jeans are full of oil stains.

Another try. 

"Are you James Cole?"

"Yep, that's me," the man with the dirty blond hair answers, his voice muffled from the metal his talking into. He looks up and Aurora can see his face clearly for the first time. Her breath catches in her throat. "How can I help you?"

Out of the sudden all of her bravado just dissolves into thin air. She had been talking to men called James Cole all weekend, had lied about her true motives in order to take a look at them, and suddenly she feels overwhelmed.

This plan had been damned to fail from the start. The man in front of her is barely 10 years older than her. He'd rather be her brother than her father. Aurora wants to kick herself.

But the man in front of her looks like the man on the photo.

Exactly like him, a carbon copy.

"It's nothing. We just --- need gas."

"No offense, but you look like you could need some help." James Cole wipes his greasy hands on a dirty rag and gives her a smile.

Aurora keeps standing still. "Have you ever heard the name Cassandra Railly?" The words fall out of her mouth before she can stop them. It's stupid to give away all her advantage, but her mouth is faster than her brain.

James Cole narrows his eyes in suspicion. "Cassandra." He shakes his head. "I don't know anybody with that name."

"Do you have some unknown twin then? I've got a pic here and ---" Aurora walks up to him. She takes the picture from her jeans pocket and holds it out to him. He reaches for it, taking a long glance at it.

Something in his face changes. There is some kind of recognition, she can see it, but also something else. Aurora doesn't know why, but suddenly the man, James Cole, looks like he walks down a flight of stairs and missed the last couple ones, like somebody pulled the rug from under his feet.

He hands her the photo back. "Sorry, I don't know her."

A lie.

"This is you."

"Listen, I don't know what you want from me, but you should leave now. Just let me live in peace."

"I just ---," she tries to defend herself.

"I'm sure it's not like that, but you need to go now."

In absence of a better option she just nods.

Steps echo from behind her and suddenly Hannah is standing beside her. "Hey, Aurora, are we ready to go, because --- Holy Shit." Hannah's eyes fall onto James and her jaw drops spectacularly. 

"Yes. We can go." 

"But ---"

Aurora turns her attention towards James again. "I'm sorry we bothered you. Have a nice evening."

 

\---

_Where are you right now? Somewhere you don't belong? Wondering who have I become. Living a life you never thought you'd have to. You'd adapt, transform... Evolve. Metamorphosis. And sometimes you have to accept not every caterpillar becomes a butterfly._

\---

 

Heavy rain is pouring from the dark black sky and Aurora is soaking wet before she reaches the hospital entrance. She doesn't bother with an umbrella in this kind of weather, the wind would have blown it away anyway. It's been over a week since her disastrous meeting with the James Cole and the weather reflects her mood. 

The long hallway leading to Cassandra's room is laying in darkness tonight, only illuminated by a stray lightning. She opens the door slowly and quietly. She doesn't want to wake her mum, if she's already asleep.

But Aurora knows she awake. And not alone. She presses her back to the wall and closes the door without a sound. Thankfully the room's layout is hiding her from the sight of the room's occupants.

"You don't remember me Cole, it's fine. You can't."

"I do. Remember you. A different version of you, I think. Sometimes there are memories ---" He lapses into silence for a moment. "As if my brain isn't able to keep them together."

"You shouldn't remember."

"Cassie ---"

Aurora desperately wants to get a better look at them, but from her point of view she can barely make out their shadows. From the tone is his voice she knows he must remember _something_.

"You shouldn't remember." Her mother's voice is firmer now.

" _You_ do."

"It's different for me."

"We saved the world, didn't we?"

"We did."

"And what about the girl, Cassie?"

There is a small pause and Aurora hopes she might develop the ability to vanish into thin air in the next few seconds.

"Aurora," Cole continues.

Another beat of silence.

"She found you, didn't she?"

"She's quite stubborn, from what I've gathered."

"Aurora is the most important person in my life."

Rivers of tears flow freely down her cheeks. For all her life her mother's had been everything she had. Jones and Hannah hold special places in her heart too, but her mother is the most important of them all.

"I think she thinks the same of you."

"Is that how you found me?"

"She mentioned your name and Google did the rest."

"I loved you, Cole."

"I think I have a memory of that too."

 

\---

 

She doesn't listen to any more of it.

Her curiosity isn't worth exploring whatever twisted bond exists between her mother and the man named James Cole. There had been too much undiscovered territory in their conversation, and Aurora feels like fleeing.

She needs some air.

And there is something else she wants to find out.

Her mother had always talked about saving the world, especially in the last few months. But Aurora can remember the same theme earlier in her life, in the bed time stories Cassandra had read to her.

They had been about time travelers and women trying to protect the world, protect time.

And there is one person who might know more.

 

\---

 

Hannah is working a late shift in the restaurant tonight, so there's no chance that she might be visiting Jones tonight.

It's not that Aurora doesn't trust her - for the record, she does, she is her best friend, her sister in everything but blood - but this is too close, too personal to share just yet. It had been different when the search for James Cole had been an elaborate game and not the most important secret of her life.

Aurora doesn't like to open up about her feelings, doesn't wear them on her sleeves. She is extrovert and self - confident to a certain degree, but she prefers to keep her true feelings to herself.

Right now she doesn't even what she is feeling at all, what she is supposed to feel.

The rain is still pouring down when she stops her car in front of Jones' house and runs to the front door. Aurora rings the door bell and keeps ringing it as if the devil were after her. Patient is not a virtue in this very moment.

Jones opens the door looking slightly disgruntled as well as alarmed. "Is there anything wrong? Because I think you just broke my poor door bell, foolish girl."

Aurora had had a lot of time to think about questions to ask Jones, but none of them come to her mind. "Would you or Mum ever lie to me?"

"If it means protecting you or Hannah, yes. You have no idea how far a mother's love can reach."

"Is Mum insane?," she gets out breathlessly.

Jones takes off her glasses and rubs her eyes. "No."

 

\---

 

There's coffee. Many, many cups of it. A bad idea, combined with her already frantic heartbeat, but Aurora doesn't care. She only listens to Jones' explanations. About a plague. About a time machine. About a man named James Cole.

"How does it work if you never built the time machine?"

"It's the age old problem of what comes first? Chicken or egg?"

"What?" Aurora raises her eyebrows. "Chicken, but that's only my opinion."

Jones takes a puff of her cigarette. "It doesn't matter what you think. The point is as follows: In the first timeline the Kalavirus broke out in 2017. Then there was a second, slightly changed one, it broke out in 2019 then. Afterwards there was a third change in times, the biggest and most important one. You are still with me?"

Aurora nodded.

"When they prevented all the events leading to the release of the plague, anything from then on started to dissolve. Time reset itself and created a new timeline. Nobody has any memory of it, except your mother. And Cole --- Cole was erased, because the only reason for the

"That still doesn't ---"

"Different allegory." Jones pulls out a page of blank paper and starts drawing. "Imagine you live in a skyscraper. It's really high, say 500 floors. There are elevators. But there are rules for using the elevator. Elevator A only reaches the first 100 floors. In Floor 101 you have to move to Elevator B. In Floor 201 you have to move to Elevator C. It's the same with this. Elevator A was the first timeline, where the plague happened. When James and Cassandra prevented the apocalypse from happening, they landed in Floor 101, but only your mother got into Elevator B."

"Because Elevator A doesn't exist anymore," Aurora whispers.

"Exactly. I have built the time machine, just not the me sitting here with you. But the only reason I can sit with you is, that it has happened before."

They sit together in silence to assimilate the information. Aurora had hoped the new details would help her understand. But the heavy, sinking feeling in her stomach grows with every second.

"Kat, why is Mum forgetting?"

"I don't know it all, you have to understand. I only know what happened when they visited me in 2015 and what your mother has told me, which isn't much to begin with," Jones sighs. Sadness is shadowing her features, the kind when you have done something fatally wrong. "But I think it has something to do with the splintering to do, the time travels, the different sets of memories of the different timelines. I'm not sure, but it is the best of guesses."

"So he really is my father?"

"Not he personally, not really. The other James Cole is. Despite it going against any rule of nature."

Aurora blinks a few times, at loss for words. "You literally invented time traveling but I'm the time abnormality, I see how it is."

Jones grins. "Fair enough."

"Now what?"

 

\---

 

The following days are better. Aurora uses the term cautiously, to scared to put the kiss of death on it, but things are actually looking quite well. The weather is calming down and her mother's memory loss isn't worsening any further. She still thinks of 2044 as the apocalypse version she had gotten to know so many years ago, but the memories are more balanced now.

Things look more hopeful.

Aurora knows the reason why. She's smart. And it's pretty obvious.

Sometimes she sees Cole leaving the hospital before comes to visit in the evenings. sometimes she hides in the toilet across her mother's room if they are still talking so he won't notice her. After his first visit she hadn't overheard any more of their talks, she isn't a masochist. 

But even she can't deny that he makes her happy. Cassandra seems more at peace, like he is a missing piece of the puzzle that is her past, her whole life. Aurora can't without this from her. And truth be told, she is impressed by his conviction to drive two hours each to visit her. 

It takes Aurora 15 days to gather enough courage to confront him. No, not really confront him, talk to him, meet him, stand in front him and look him in the eye. Maybe he doesn't even want to talk to her. He hasn't even showed the slightest indication to. But she won't let this hinder her.

She takes a day off from the library and waits for him in the hospital lobby. Aurora could wait in her mother's room, but she doesn't want to alarm her.

Cole doesn't disappoint. He arrives on time and freezes the second he spots her.

"Aurora."

"I'm not gonna call you Dad now." Her deflection techniques really need some brush up. But at least Cole laughs.

"Yeah. It's ---"

"Weird," Aurora finishes.

"Yeah. I'm sorry how I've treated you the first time in the garage. "

"Never mind. I want to ask you something. Why are you coming here almost every single day?" 

"Should I stop?," he asks.

"No. I just want to know."

"I remember her, I think." Cole rubs a hand over his beard, more looking at the ceiling than at her. "Not like you remember what you had for breakfast, or how you learned to ride a bicycle. It's more like a memory of tomorrow. I could've known her in a different life, while simultaneously knowing the nickname I gave her and her birthday and watching her die again and again --- I can't let her go now."

"Then don't."

"I don't think ---"

Aurora puts a hand in the air. "Look, I want my mum back. I want to help her. I have no idea how, but who knows? It can't be worse than traveling through time and changing history. So are you in?"

"I'm in."

**Author's Note:**

> the quote about 'taking over the world' is obviously not mine. it originates from the cartoon 'pinky and the brain'. tell me what you think and find me @ mightyjemma.tumblr.com
> 
> (also, i don't really think timelines work like this on the show, but i needed it to be like this for the purpose of this fic. i hope you can forgive me.)


End file.
